His Secret Family
Contents (34)
- His Secret Family
- Ali Mercer
- Books by Ali Mercer
- Foreword
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Lost Daughter
- Hear More from Ali
- Books by Ali Mercer
- A Letter from Ali
- Acknowledgements
His Secret Family
An absolutely gripping and emotional pageturner
Ali Mercer
Books by Ali Mercer
Lost Daughter
His Secret Family
Available in Audio
Lost Daughter (Available in the UK and US)
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Lost Daughter
Hear More from Ali
Books by Ali Mercer
A Letter from Ali
Acknowledgements
For my mum
Foreword
Paula
When I was a child I had a book that told the myth of the Furies, the three terrifying goddesses of vengeance who pursued people who had done wrong. Once they were on your case, there was nothing you could do to placate them. They would haunt you and torment you without pity, because that was their job: they were there to inflict justice. To make sure that even hidden wrongdoing came at a cost. You could keep secrets from other people, or defend yourself against them. But there was no defence against the Furies.
I never would have imagined that one day I’d play the Fury myself.
But times change, don’t they? People change. And motherhood changes you. The Furies weren’t mothers. If they had been, they really would have been too horrifying to contemplate. Because if there’s one thing more insatiable than a goddess bent on vengeance, it’s a mother who is driven by the wrong that has been done to her child.
Anyway, I didn’t just decide to hunt him down out of the blue. I was provoked.
I’d done my best to leave him in peace. To move on. To forget, if not to forgive. I didn’t even think about him all that much. I was always busy, and anyway, he’d asked me to stay away and I’d chosen to honour that request. After what he and his wife and family had been through, it seemed the least I could do.
But then I found out – quite by chance – that his daughter was getting married.
It had to be the older one. The first one. By now, she’d be the right sort of age for all that. Mid-twenties. Heading into the baby-making years. Young-ish to settle down with the four-slice toaster and the his ’n’ hers TV trays, but not too young.
Marriage wasn’t something I saw in my own daughter’s future, but I was well past being bitter about that. Still, it struck me as odd that they’d chosen to stage the big day in my town, right under my nose.
It made me wonder how much they knew. The family he’d chosen. The wife. The girls.
Had they forgotten? Or had they decided it didn’t matter?
Maybe they had just assumed I wouldn’t find out. But I had. I had a friend who did bookings for the abbey hall where they were holding the reception, and she mentioned it to me. She recognised his name on the seating plan. And she knew he’d lived with us, once. A long time ago. Small-town memories are long – longer than the internet – and there’s no right to be forgotten.